Lorne Falkenstein

David Hume’s philosophical work presents the reader with a perplexing mix of constructive accounts of empirically guided belief and destructive sceptical arguments against all belief. This book reconciles this conflict by showing that Hume intended his scepticism to be remedial. It immunizes us against the influence of “unphilosophical” causes of belief, determining us to proportion our beliefs to the evidence. In making this case, this book develops Humean positions on topics Hume did not discuss in detail but that are of interest to contemporary philosophers: consciousness and the unity of consciousness, temporal experience, visual spatial perception, the experience of colour and other qualia, objective experience, and spatially extended minds. It also challenges currently accepted interpretations of Hume’s views on the finite divisibility of space and time, vacuum, the duration of unchanging objects, and identity over time. It deals with criticisms of Hume that were raised by his contemporaries, notably by Thomas Reid, draws attention to earlier seventeenth- and eighteenth-century work that has bearing on the interpretation of Hume’s thought, and compares Hume’s achievements with those of later nineteenth-century psychologists and philosophers. Consciousness, Time, and Scepticism in Hume’s Thought will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in Hume, history of philosophy, and early modern theories of perception, time, and consciousness. The Introduction and Chapter 1 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

David Hume’s philosophical work presents the reader with a perplexing mix of constructive accounts of empirically guided belief and destructive sceptical arguments against all belief. This book reconciles this conflict by showing that Hume intended his scepticism to be remedial. It immunizes us against the influence of “unphilosophical” causes of belief, determining us to proportion our beliefs to the evidence.In making this case, this book develops Humean positions on topics Hume did not discuss in detail but that are of interest to contemporary philosophers: consciousness and the unity of consciousness, temporal experience, visual spatial perception, the experience of colour and other qualia, objective experience, and spatially extended minds. It also challenges currently accepted interpretations of Hume’s views on the finite divisibility of space and time, vacuum, the duration of unchanging objects, and identity over time. It deals with criticisms of Hume that were raised by his contemporaries, notably by Thomas Reid, draws attention to earlier seventeenth- and eighteenth-century work that has bearing on the interpretation of Hume’s thought, and compares Hume’s achievements with those of later nineteenth-century psychologists and philosophers.Consciousness, Time, and Scepticism in Hume’s Thought will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in Hume, history of philosophy, and early modern theories of perception, time, and consciousness.The Introduction and Chapter 1 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Logic Works is a critical and extensive introduction to logic. It asks questions about why systems of logic are as they are, how they relate to ordinary language and ordinary reasoning, and what alternatives there might be to classical logical doctrines. The book covers classical first-order logic and alternatives, including intuitionistic, free, and many-valued logic. It also considers how logical analysis can be applied to carefully represent the reasoning employed in academic and scientific work, better understand that reasoning, and identify its hidden premises. Aiming to be as much a reference work and handbook for further, independent study as a course text, it covers more material than is typically covered in an introductory course. It also covers this material at greater length and in more depth with the purpose of making it accessible to those with no prior training in logic or formal systems.Online support material includes a detailed student solutions manual with a running commentary on all starred exercises, and a set of editable slide presentations for course lectures.Key Features Introduces an unusually broad range of topics, allowing instructors to craft courses to meet a range of various objectives Adopts a critical attitude to certain classical doctrines, exposing students to alternative ways to answer philosophical questions about logic Carefully considers the ways natural language both resists and lends itself to formalization Makes objectual semantics for quantified logic easy, with an incremental, rule-governed approach assisted by numerous simple exercises Makes important metatheoretical results accessible to introductory students through a discursive presentation of those results and by using simple case studies

Logic Works is a critical and extensive introduction to logic. It asks questions about why systems of logic are as they are, how they relate to ordinary language and ordinary reasoning, and what alternatives there might be to classical logical doctrines. The book covers classical first-order logic and alternatives, including intuitionistic, free, and many-valued logic. It also considers how logical analysis can be applied to carefully represent the reasoning employed in academic and scientific work, better understand that reasoning, and identify its hidden premises. Aiming to be as much a reference work and handbook for further, independent study as a course text, it covers more material than is typically covered in an introductory course. It also covers this material at greater length and in more depth with the purpose of making it accessible to those with no prior training in logic or formal systems.Online support material includes a detailed student solutions manual with a running commentary on all starred exercises, and a set of editable slide presentations for course lectures.Key Features Introduces an unusually broad range of topics, allowing instructors to craft courses to meet a range of various objectives Adopts a critical attitude to certain classical doctrines, exposing students to alternative ways to answer philosophical questions about logic Carefully considers the ways natural language both resists and lends itself to formalization Makes objectual semantics for quantified logic easy, with an incremental, rule-governed approach assisted by numerous simple exercises Makes important metatheoretical results accessible to introductory students through a discursive presentation of those results and by using simple case studies

Ever since the publication of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, Immanuel Kant has occupied a central position in the philosophical world. In Kant's Intuitionism – the most detailed study of Kant's views on the opening sections of the Critique since Hans Vaihinger's Commentar zur Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft more than a century ago – Lorne Falkenstein focuses on one aspect of Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic, namely, his position on how we manage to intuit the properties and relations of objects as they exist in space and time. The question of how much structure sensory input has of itself and how much we give it through processing is a major problem not only in philosophy, but in cognitive science in general. How much do our faculties do to structure our knowledge of objects and to give them their spatial and temporal existence? Recent interpretations of Kant's doctrine of intuition have emphasized the constructivist answer to this question, but Falkenstein argues that our knowledge of objects in space and time is not grounded in concepts but in the quasi-physiological constitution of our senses. Kant's Intuitionism examines Kant's account of the human cognitive faculties, his views on space, and his reasons for denying that we have knowledge of things as they are in themselves. It is key to understanding the thinking of the philosopher and revitalizes the debate about the implications of the Transcendental Aesthetic.